Amid all the attention to New Horizons and the Pluto mission, including an arc at Prickly City (beginning here), Scott Stantis has posted this piece on light pollution and our subsequent loss of contact with the universe.
Stantis suggests a causal link between crime and security and the phenomenon, but, sadly, there isn't even really that pragmatic justification for most of it.
The stars are blotted from the sky in good neighborhoods, even out in the suburbs, not just in the less safe sections of the urban core.
I was not particularly aware of this, because, for one thing, I've worked pretty hard to avoid living in cities, though I spent the bulk of my 20s and 30s under the bright lights.
By the time I got away again, I'd reached a stage in life where I didn't wander around at night very much anymore, although I had the happy coincidence, in my mid-40s, of a young, highly energetic dog coming along at the same time as the Hale-Bopp comet, so my then-GF and I were regularly out trying to take the edge off the puppy during what was a pretty spectacular ongoing lightshow.
But, even later, there have been nights, particularly when I was living in a farmhouse in rural Maine, where I'd step outside and the night sky would take my breath away, and I'd think back to being a high school kid walking home at night under the bright lights of a winter sky.
I have been aware for some time that city people were scared of the dark, and of the silence.
Stories abounded of urban-raised freshmen at Plattsburgh State who had to put on rock music at night because the lack of traffic, sirens and other ambient city noise made it impossible for them to sleep, and the American Management Association in Saranac Lake regularly had executives freak out over the fact that, when you turn out the lights up there in the country, it becomes dark.
But the sad fact that these people genuinely had no stars never really hit me until 2006, when I wrote an educational series called "Stories in the Stars" that combined mythology and astronomy.
It was illustrated by Dylan Meconis, and my technical advisors were Sherwood Harrington, a professor of astronomy, and Brian Fies, who had not yet created "Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow."
Each chapter told the story of a constellation, and then explained an astronomical point of interest. Dylan is a mythology buff and would craft an illustration that matched the chart of the constellation, while Sherwood and Brian would lead me through the astronomy.
I referenced other cultures when I could, but wanted to feature at least one constellation that wasn't from the Greco-Roman sky, and discovered a delightful tale from China about two lovers separated by a river, which was the Milky Way.
To which Sherwood and Brian noted that very, very few of my readers would have ever seen the Milky Way.
I was gobsmacked.
The Milky Way was as much a part of my life as the Moon. In fact, when I walked home on winter nights, if the Moon was down, the Milky Way lit my path. It wasn't just visible; it was useful, it was a utility that I took pretty much for granted, though I never lost an appreciation for its beauty.
But Sherwood pointed me to a blog posting by Chris Clarke, referenced here, in which people told of the first time they'd ever seen the Milky Way.
I remain gobsmacked and sad. As Scott notes, "Hopes and dreams are made of visions of the firmament."
In another world, it was not just the shepherds out with their flocks at night who looked up and saw the stars. It was everybody.
Everyone in the world looked up, and saw, and dreamed.
They used the relationship of Arcturus and Polaris as a clock, yes, but it was not all practical and useful: They also saw the slow blinking of the self-eclipsing multi-star Algol -- a dimming for 10 hours every three nights -- and let it become for them the eye of the Medusa, her head clutched in the hands of Perseus, while the Arabic al-Ghul gave us the word "ghoul" and the tales that came from that.
"Stories in the Stars," indeed.
A people without stars is a people without stories.
It is not supposed to be that way.
"A people without stars is a people without stories."
Mike, thank you for your story today. Awareness is the first step to restoration of starlight for future generations... and future cities. We have the smarts to do it. We now have the technology and reasons to give cities streetlights and starlight too.
Posted by: Audrey Fischer | 07/16/2015 at 09:46 AM
Loved this. I have not previously thought about the loss of the firmament and the impact that could have on creativity. Interesting …
Posted by: Dave from Phila | 07/16/2015 at 12:27 PM